ir own accord, without any incitement from us, on the
contrary, kept back by us, without any urging on our part, without any
advice on our part, but stung by necessity, and the terrible realities
of their position, may have formed such a combination among themselves
to secure such a reduction of rent as will enable them to live in their
own homes." From this language of Mr. Parnell in October 1885 to Mr.
Dillon's speech in October 1886, urging and advising the tenants to
organise, exact contributions from every member of the organisation, and
put these contributions under the control of third parties determined to
confiscate the money subscribed by any member who might not find the
organisation working to his advantage, is a rather long step! It covers
all the distance between a cunning defensive evasion of the law, and an
open aggressive violation of the law--not of the land only, but of
common honesty. One of two things is clear: either these combinations
are voluntary and "isolated," and intended, as Mr. Parnell asserts, to
secure such a reduction of rents as will enable the tenants, and each of
them, to live peacefully and comfortably at home, and in that case any
member of the combination who finds that he can attain his object better
by leaving it has an absolute right to do this, and to demand the return
of his money; or they are part of a system imposed upon the tenants by a
moral coercion inconsistent with the most elementary ideas of private
right and personal freedom. This makes the importance of Mr. Dillon's
speech, that by his denunciation of any member who wishes to withdraw
from this "voluntary" combination as a "traitor," and by his order to
"close upon the money" of any such member, "and use it for the
organisation," he brands the "organisation" as a subterranean despotism
of a very cheap and nasty kind. The Government which tolerates the
creation of such a Houndsditch tyranny as this within its dominions
richly deserves to be overthrown. As for the people who submit
themselves to it, I do not wonder that in his more lucid moments a
Catholic priest like Father Quilter feels himself moved to denounce them
as "poor slaves." Of course with a benevolent neutral like myself, the
question always recurs, Who trained them to submit to this sort of
thing? But I really am at a loss to see why a parcel of conspirators
should be encouraged in the nineteenth century to bully Irish farmers
out of their manhood and thei